Stort Navi #10 Parndon Mill Traditional Cache
FantasticCat: Not geocaching anymore so best to archive and free space up for new series. Sorry if poor maintenance has led to problems. Will collect caches still there when next in area. Thanks.
Stort Navi #10 Parndon Mill
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(small)
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Part of a series along the Stort Navigable river
Small tupperware container.
The history of Parndon Mill goes back some time. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book as having two hives and a goat. There still is a goat at Parndon Mill (although I think it is a different one!), as well as many other animals including rare breed Essex pigs and a donkey. Successive buildings have stood on the site, milling flour from the grain grown on the rich farmland around. Flour can be very combustible and there have been numerous fires over the years, the last one in 1897 destroyed the mill. Construction on the current building was completed in 1900. A Francis horizontal turbine was installed in 1904 which produced 20HP! It is still in position in the wheelhouse, but stopped turning in 1960 when the well respected miller Neville Smith died.
Since the sixties it has been occupied by artists and craftsmen who have gradually restored the premises. On the top floor of the mill there are studios for painting, sculpture and print making, the rest of the building being occupied by designers in various fields and architects. In the outbuildings and old stables a variety of crafts flourish, including jewellery, porcelain, carpentry and alternative furniture and there is a blacksmith who in his spare time is restoring a Dutch barge.
Parking in nearby lane at N51.46 761 E 000.05.072.
There is parking at the Mill at N51 46 791 E 000 04.905. However this says parking for business only (I assume this includes visitors to the gallery)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
vil pbirerq gerr